But has the world’s most controversial creative cost the latest addition to the awards calendar its credibility? Apparently not.
At final count, the competition that some thought too pricey to support (US$400 per campaign; single entries cost $250), received 1,350 entries in its inaugural year. “More than I’d feared, less than I’d hoped for,” says French.
And interest was not limited to the world’s most privileged markets. A fifth of entries, perhaps out of loyalty to a long-time mentor to many of its creative leaders, were from Asia. French’s idea of a small panel of “only the best” judges in the world “all with proven expertise, and nothing to prove” has helped fuel interest. Chosen based on their career awards tallies, the line-up included Marcello Serpa, creative director of Brazilian agency AlmapBBDO, the most awarded in history (according to the Gunn Report), and six other creative luminaries (including French himself) with groaning trophy cabinets.
Unsurprisingly, critics bemoan yet another advertising awards. Others shrug at one for press alone at a time when others — even ‘luvvy’ Cannes — are inventing unglamorous, client-pleasing categories to reward well integrated campaigns. Not Graham Warsop, one of French’s panel, who has won 10 Cannes print golds in his time as ECD of South Africa’s The Jupiter Drawing Room. “This is the first global awards focused on print, and the only – other than D&AD – where one medium is given the time it deserves by the judges.”
What the World Press Awards isn’t, Warsop insists, is a “last ditch attempt to save print”. It is rather, says French, a tribute to a medium that “remains powerful, unchanged and unthreatened”. He adds: “If you can produce a press ad that people read and remember, you have cracked your profession.”
Problem was, few entries required reading. “There was plenty of illustration, but only a handful of ads tried to persuade with clever, rewarding copy,” Alsop observes. “It used to be that our industry was full of writers who just so happened to be in advertising. On this evidence, creatives coming through the ranks are still too visually orientated.”
This didn’t worry Serpa. “I saw some great typography and was, on the whole, pretty impressed with the work. Interestingly, globalisation and the democratisation of the industry has meant that you no longer get regional styles — strong visually-led ads from Latin America, for example, or the best typography from the UK. We saw a balance of good work of varying styles from all over the world.”
The biggest question, though, is how seriously we should take awards led by someone who proudly insists he is “actively proactive”. So was French tough on “proactive” work (or ‘scam’) to silence the doubters?
“Not at all. We all do it,” he says. “It’s not my job to decide what a client would or wouldn’t buy. On one occasion a judge said to me: ‘I can’t see this getting past a client’ — but that was their call to make.”
However French does concede: “I looked around for potential flack I’d get later on, and none of the golds we awarded were contentious. We’re all experienced judges with natural filters. If we see something we like, but in the back of our minds have a doubt, we automatically take our foot off the accelerator.”
Warsop concludes: “When you see the gold winners in the WPA Annual (to be released in March), the question you should ask yourself is: ‘Would I put my money behind this if I was a client?’”
